most people who don't know better call them with the same name. Imagine the confusion if cattlemen referred to every animal in their herds as "cows"!
So, would you propose to call those two topologically different animals, the ABoK#1010 and the ABoK1034.5, by an altogether different name ?
No. I have no desire to change the names currently used. What I do propose is calling them by the names they have now, to wit: the bowline/right-handed bowline and the left-handed/cowboy bowline, with the addition of Scott's lock. The purpose of my proposal is to be clear about which of these can be modified into the knot which is the subject of this thread ( by using the
mechanism of the lock in this thread, your modification of Scott's lock, which can only be used as a modification of a left-handed/cowboy bowline.
...
The two forms of the bowline are topologically different, but they are still called by the same noun ...
Actually cows/bulls/steers/heifers/and oxen are all different in their own ways, but are all called cows, when the distinction is unimportant. In certain instances, it is important that distinctions be made (castration, milking, and breeding, to
name a few). In the case of the lock which is the subject of this thread,
the distinction is important. The Scott's lock applied to a
right-hand bowline is not the same as the Scott's lock applied to a
cowboy bowline is not the same as a Scott's lock applied to
Eskimo bowlines (with the tail on the inside or outside).
- like eating same piece of beef, only with a different sauce on it.
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Wrong. The beef is not the same. The meat of bulls and steers is different. Bulls (and oxen) are much more muscular and tend to have stringier, tougher meat than steers. The meat of calves (known as
veal) is the tenderest of all. And you can't get veal from a 5-year-old bull.
...
I do not trust the names of the knots...Too often they are misleading, indeed, and they do not help / allow people to distinguish differences or similarities which the should had noticed right away.
Precisely! And what I hope to achieve by my proposal is
clarity, not obfuscation, which I believe calling this knot simply a "simple modification of a Scott's locked bowline" causes through lack of precision. Scott did not propose that his modification be made to a left-handed/cowboy bowline, although it can be applied to that knot. The the current modification cannot be applied to a right-handed bowline, and I believe that this fact should be reflected in the name.
-- J:P